O'Reilly's Pocket Guides have earned a reputation as inexpensive, comprehensive, and compact guides that have the stuff but not the fluff. Every page of Linux Pocket Guide lives up to this billing. It clearly explains how to get up to speed quickly on day-to-day Linux use. Once you're up and running, Linux Pocket Guide provides an easy-to-use reference that you can keep by your keyboard for those times when you want a fast, useful answer, not hours in the man pages.Linux Pocket Guide is organized the way you use Linux: by function, not just alphabetically. It's not the 'bible of Linux; it's a practical and concise guide to the options and commands you need most. It starts with general concepts like files and directories, the shell, and X windows, and then presents detailed overviews of the most essential commands, with clear examples. You'll learn each command's purpose, usage, options, location on disk, and even the RPM package that installed it.The Linux Pocket Guide is tailored to Fedora Linux--the latest spin-off of Red Hat Linux--but most of the information applies to any Linux system.Throw in a host of valuable power user tips and a friendly and accessible style, and you'll quickly find this practical, to-the-point book a small but mighty resource for Linux users.

Chapter 1 Linux Pocket Guide

What's in This Book?

Getting Help

Fedora: A First View

Logins, Logouts, and Shutdowns

The Filesystem

The Shell

Installing Software

tar.gz and tar.bz2 files

Basic File Operations

Directory Operations

File Viewing

File Creation and Editing

File Properties

File Location

File Text Manipulation

More Powerful Manipulations

File Compression and Packaging

File Comparison

Disks and Filesystems

Partitioning and Formatting Disks

Backups and Remote Storage

File Printing

Spelling Operations

Viewing Processes

Controlling Processes

Users and Their Environment

Working with User Accounts

Becoming the Superuser

Working with Groups

Basic Host Information

Host Location

Network Connections

Email

Web Browsing

Usenet News

Instant Messaging

Screen Output

Math and Calculations

Dates and Times

Scheduling Jobs

Graphics and Screensavers

Audio and Video

Programming with Shell Scripts

Final Words

Daniel J. Barrett

Dan Barrett has been immersed in Internet technology since 1985. Currently working as a software engineer, Dan has also been a heavy metal singer, Unix system administrator, university lecturer, web designer, and humorist. He has written several O'Reilly books, as well as monthly columns for Compute! and Keyboard Magazine. Dan and his family reside in Boston.

This is the most valuable guide I own. It contains enough bash, sed, awk, and other information that I keep it with me always. In addition, it is full of what you would expect regarding linux commands and utilities.

An Idea for futures edition. There is a lot of command but not all are in this book, so... you can put some blank pages at the end of each chapter or at the end of the book for write the commands that are useful for the user. I think so, becouse I like to have al the commands in the same place.

A very nice, pocket sized guide to Linux. The guide covers many common commands. The only major complaint is that the only version available is for Fedora Core, however most of the commands are still applicable in most other distributions.

A must have for anyone that uses Linux and has a short memory for commands.

One of the first things you will notice about this book is the size. Measuring a tiny 4.25 inches wide X 7 inches tall and only about a 1/2 inch in thickness, you might be under the mistaken impression that it doesn't have much to offer. Don't let it's size fool you. Personally, I love the size of this little book. It is small enough to take with you in your coat pocket, giving you reading material while waiting in line or any time you have spare time to kill.

This book is written as a short guide, and not intended to cover every single topic. What it does cover, it covers very well. Basically it shows you the "Essential Commands", just like the note on the front cover says. If your like me, and don't have every command and man page memorized or are just learning the Linux command line, this is a valuable tool. The book covers almost all of the basic command line commands and gives a very readable account of how they are used and some intersting comments thrown in for good measure.

The book starts out with the obligatory introduction to Linux and progresses very fast from there. A few comments on "What's a Command" and "Users and Superusers" and then into a few pages on "The role of the Shell". Now it starts to get into the bulk of what makes up the book. The bulk of the rest of the chapters cover mostly commands and what each one does. The book progresses nicely through these, starting with the basic commands for moving through the Linux filesytems, and then to basic file operations. The flow of the book is nice because as it progresses, you don't feel lost. Each section builds on the others and feels almost like a textbook in that regard.

So much is covered in the 200 pages, it's hard to believe that it actually all fit into this small book. Again, don't let the size fool you, there is an enormous amount of information packed into it. The final chapters cover some graphical things (it's not all command line), like audio/video, screensavers, web browsing. The final section deals with shell scripting and the basic bash commands. This ties in nicely as it allows you to use the commands from the previous chapters and integrate them into some bash scripts which, very nicely, wraps things up.

One of the only things that might initially make people think the book isn't something that they want, is that it says "Covers Fedora Linux" on the cover. While it does go into some Fedora specific things on a few pages, in reality, it isn't much of an issue and 99% of the book is applicable for other distro's as well. So don't let that stop you from getting this book!

This is definatley a must have for those new to Linux that want to get up to speed on using the command line. I saw this book the other day in the bookstore and bought it. It's such a great value, I had to write a review for it. For $10, you would be hard pressed to find a better book for the money.

This is a small book: 4 1/4 inches by 7 inches and just 179 pages. It's motto is "short, sweet and essential". It delivers essential info on Linux very compactly. The essential is mostly, but not entirely, carefully selected Linux commands and carefully selected options of those commands.

I'm happy to recommend this book for just about any Linux user who doesn't consider themselves a Linux expert. Hey, I'm not a Linux expert so I'll let them come to their own conclusions.

Personally, I've used the book first to review Linux commands and then as a reference. It's done the job for me.